2 Strangers in the Forest
by Roztov
Summary: Soora gets some odd visitors


Soora woke as she did every morning and walked down to the lake to draw water to boil for her morning wash and to  
cook her breakfast. Her ramshackle hut was hidden from all directions by the deep evergreen forests hereabouts  
but from the lake she could see all the way down the river to the village. At the head of the village was a tower  
that had sat unused, certainly since Soora had started living in the forest, slowly crumbling into ruin, another  
relic of ancient times that was no longer needed. The little village of Stonebridge had not had a use for it in  
a long time.

But the tower had become a lot busier just recently. Strange flashes at night, even stranger noises would drift  
across the lake, sometimes startling her out of her sleep. Since her son had been killed, she was very afraid  
of the night.

Soora was tall and dark skinned, certainly not a dwarf, as where the majority of the inhabitants around these parts  
of the mountains. The whole area was a pretty much forgotten about set of secluded flat, but tall sided, valleys  
that sat between the towering Butcherblock mountains to the west and the vast forests of Greater Faydark to the east.  
Nominally these lands were ruled from Kaladim, but the de facto rulers were the town and village councils of  
each settlement. Most of the dwarves around here that knew Soora, and not all of them did know that an outlander  
lived above the village by the lake, knew her as an Erudite, but that wasn't the full story.  
Although Soora's worst fears were that a necromancer had moved into the tower, she just couldn't bring herself  
to believe that the Sheriff would allow it, or the magistrates come to that.

Putting the bucket down for a second, she pushed back her hood and looked across the valley to the village, the  
whole settlement laid out in front of her like a model. And just to confirm her suspicions of strange goings on  
she spotted a rider coming from the west, at full gallop, towards the tower. At the river trees grew so for  
a moment the rider was lost from view, but was soon flying across the next field and up the steep path that lead  
to the towers door. Soora new that the ferry took ten minutes to cross the river but the rider had just continued  
on his way as if no river was there at all. This wasn't the first time she had seen this happen.  
As she watched some strange blue glow lit up the top windows of the tower, then another and another, pulsing  
in the dawn light. Soora new magic when she saw it and it didn't make her happy at all. She had hoped she  
would never see anything arcane ever again.

Presently another rider appeared from the west, heading at high speed towards the tower, then another two close  
behind the first. It was going to be a busy day down at the village evidently.

Shaking her head, Soora carried the heavy bucket back up to her cottage, a walk that would take her twenty minutes  
following a deer path up and old dried up gully until it levelled out into a flat hollow that may have been a  
quarry at one time. It was hemmed in on all sides by large pine trees and was very difficult to spot if you  
didn't know it was there. Soora's lazy dog, Toresian, would just be about getting out of his bed, she reflected.

But Tor wasn't in his kennel as she approached her door and that was enough to set her nerves on edge. Every day  
for the last three years he had sat at the entrance step waiting for his breakfast. With great trepidation she  
slowly pushed open her front door. With a creak it opened and inch by inch revealed the first of her only two  
rooms.

Muddy foot prints, not hers, lead into the bedroom.

Where is that cursed creature?, she thought, I need him to deal with situations like this. But the hound was nowhere  
to be seen. Carefully, as silently as she could, she pulled a log from the woodpile by the stove. With fear leaping  
up into her throat she carefully edged towards the bedroom door.

Pushing this door slowly open she first saw the bottom of her bed, then as she looked throw the narrow crack  
she had created she saw a pair of boots, as if someone were lying there. Suddenly something leapt out at her  
and she nearly swung at it before she realised it was Toresian. He greeted her with a slobbery lick on the face  
and just as she got her bearing back a man stepped out from behind the door and said  
'I'm sorry to scare you! Is this your house? I am sorry to intrude by my friend is in great need.'

It took her a moment to take it all in, on the bed was what at first looked like a bundle of bloody rags, but after  
a moments thought, slowly formed into the broken body of a man dressed in robes. Covered in dried blood and dirt  
the human form was barely recognisable. His face had three huge gashes across it as if he had been mauled by some  
fearsome creature.

The man that had addressed her seemed in little better shape. The chainmail that he wore was tattered and ripped.  
Blood had dried out all across his chest and arms and had matted his beard. Her traitorous dog nuzzled at the mans  
hand.

'I need to help my friend you see', repeated the man.  
'But', she blurted, 'He still lives?'  
'Tunare no! Look at him, he's as dead as last weeks leftovers!', and to her astonishment the man laughed a little.  
'But he is not beyond help if we are quick.'  
'Where have you come from?'  
'I have walked from the druid ring, maybe three days. I am so exhausted, and yet my friends are so near. I just  
had to stop and rest for a little while.'  
'The druid ring? But that is leagues away!'  
'Yes.', the man said, 'I must rest, just for a second, please...'  
He sat down on the only chair in the room and shut his eyes.  
'There magic did something to me I think, ' he mumbled, ' I feel, ... most strange..'

For a moment Soora was dumbfounded, but after a minute she realised that she had two corpses in her bedroom, not one.

After a second of complete blankness she sprang into action, throwing on a shawl she called her dog and headed into  
the village. Her first visit on over nine months. She wasn't stupid and guessed that this had something to do with  
the people at the tower. She would just have to throw aside her night time fears of what may be going on inside  
its stone walls.

Later that day, Soora's cottage was more crowded that it had been in years. She had left word at the tower and a small  
female halfling at the door and tutted and fussed in dismay at the news Soora had given her, and replied that she was  
really too busy at the moment attending to the injured in the tower, but that she would send help as soon as some  
became available.

Soora was a little perplexed by this attitude but trudged back up to her cottage, a walk of several hours.  
She was just considering whether to get the shovel out to bury the bodies, after all they couldn't stay in her  
bedroom, when she heard a knock at her door.  
There stood what she would have considered a half elf, bald of head and wearing the most fantastic of waxed moustaches.  
He wore a green chainmail shirt and carried a sword at his hip and a bow over his shoulder.

'Hello, m'dear, I believe you have two of my friends here?'

'Well yes, I expect ... that is.. they are through here.'

'How lovely, what a quaint little dwelling you have here, although I would have never have found the place unless  
I followed your tracks ... ah yes, ' he said as he was shown the bodies,  
'The poor things! And Assynt must have died in his arms! How romantic, but tragic .. but romantic! If only.. ah  
well, we will have these two right as nine pence as soon as Corius arrives.'

'Corius .. is he a cleric? There is no one with such power in the village' stumbled Soora, confused at the halfelvens  
talk.

'A paladin, m'dear, a paladin', he replied as he looked out of the bedroom window.  
'Ah, here he comes now, what a dashing figure he cuts in his shiny armour, yes?'

Soora ducked to look out the window also and saw a slim figure, dressed head to foot in dark plate mail, coming up  
the path towards the cottage. By the time he had reached the front door, she had it open and beckoned him inside.  
He removed his helmet to reveal his handsome elven features and bowed gracefully,  
'Sir Corius, ma'am, at your service.'

Soora was a little overcome and fought the urge to giggle like a school girl.

'In here, Corius you scoundrel!', called the other elf from the bedroom

'Aye, Snell, I am ready to perform the service, just show me their remains.'

As he entered the bedroom, Soora looked down at her dog and whispered,

'Two elves in one day! Fancy that eh Tor?'

Toresian thumped his tail against the floor in reply.

Soora watched as the paladin performed the ceremony. She had seen a resurrection once before in Erudin, but that had  
been at the temple. This was taking place in her very bedroom!

Snell handed his friend some green jewels, and with a solemn nod stepped back to give Corius more room to perform  
his art.

The fair elf paladin began to chant scriptures in a language Soora had no hope of recognising, and very quickly the  
room began to pulse in a strange blue light. She could suddenly smell lilies, so powerfully she felt as if she was  
in a field of them. She could here the faint chiming of bells.

The light built up until if focused onto the paladin and the body on the bed. The next moment there was a blinding flash  
and as if waking from a nightmare the body sat bolt upright and gasped. Soora shrieked in horror which made the dog  
start barking. Before her eyes she could see the mans wounds heal. He held up his hands before his face in astonishment  
as the blood trickled away.

'Shh! Tor be quiet!' she grabbed the dog to her leg.

Snell leant towards her ear and whispered, 'Every time he has a look of amazement on his face. The amount of times  
this has happened you would think he would be used to it. I hear Rodcet Nife has a room permanently set aside for him.'

This statement made no sense to her, but the ceremony was about to begin again so she had no chance to ponder it.

Corius started to chant again and light began to form around the body on the chair. As before, there was a flash and the  
man in the chair jumped up and cried 'Mother Tunare! not the lizards!... oh, I'm alive'

Snell laughed and clapped his newly resurrected friend on the shoulder,

'Welcome back to the land of the living!'

So, she had had a busy house that night. The newly risen men had both declared that they were starving so she was  
happy to feed them from her kitchen. The table had only two chairs, so the still somewhat feeble Roztov and Assynt  
had them and were fed cheese, ham, bread and preserved fruits. They ate and ate like men possessed and almost finished  
all of last summers jam. The two elves stood by the fire place while the others ate, and they all talked of what  
had happened.

Most of it went over her head, but it seemed that they had been to the continent of Kunark, had been to a place called  
Burning Wood and had then assaulted a fortress inhabited by strange tall lizard men. Soora sat with the dog on her  
lap, trying to take it all in.

And so, they had left, each of them pressing silver coins in to her hand, despite her protests.  
'Courtesy of the Sarnak royal family!' they had laughed.

'Still,' she remarked to her hound, once they had the cottage to themselves again,  
'A silver piece is a silver piece, and with all these, I won't need to work in  
the village at all this winter, and nice Mr Strongforge can make me a new griddle for the fire.'

Tor thumped is tail and licked her hand, which was pretty much his reply to anything.

'Hey! watch the silver!', she cried , then tutted as she wiped the dog drool from the coins.  
'Just a second', she mused as she looked at the ugly lizard heads on the strange foreign currency.  
'It's not silver Tor, its platinum!'

She had to sit down and have a cup of tea to calm herself after that. She was now probably the richest woman in  
Stonebridge!


End file.
